My copending application Ser. No. 573,570, filed May 1, 1975, discloses an electrostatic precipitator employing a rotor having a plurality of collector plates which are alternately charged for creating electrostatic fields therebetween. This rotor is rotatably driven and has the particle-laden gas passed therethrough for removing the particles due to the electrostatic charges which are created thereon by an ionizing section located upstream of the rotor. The rotor has a substantially cylindrical passage extending axially thereof, which passage is of a converging configuration to facilitate the uniform distribution of the gas outwardly between the adjacent pairs of collector plates. In addition, the collector plates are of substantially equal surface areas to provide electrostatic fields therebetween of uniform intensity. This results in the precipitator operating in a desirable manner to permit the efficient removal of substantial quantities of particles from the gas. At the same time, this design of the rotor permits a substantial quantity of gas to flow therethrough so that relatively large quantities of gas can be efficiently cleaned.
While the precipitator system disclosed in my abovementioned application has proven to operate in a successful manner, nevertheless additional research and development has been carried out in an attempt to still further improve the structure and operation of this system. Thus, this invention relates to further improvements which have been made in this electrostatic precipitator system, which improvements relate not only to the structure of the system but also to the resulting operation thereof.
More specifically, it is an object of the present invention to provide an improved electrostatic precipitator system, as aforesaid, which employs an improved centrifugal rotor wherein the collector plates are all sloped rearwardly as they project radially so that the gaseous stream in flowing radially outwardly between the collector plates is also displaced axially in a direction opposite to the gaseous stream which flows axially into the central opening of the rotor. This reversal in the flow direction of the stream as it flows radially outwardly between the adjacent collector plates is believed to improve the efficient removal of particles from the gaseous stream.
A further object of the present invention is to provide an improved electrostatic precipitator system, as aforesaid, employing an improved ionizing section disposed at the inlet end of the rotor, which ionizing section employs a plurality of ionizing wires forming a grid disposed within a plane which extends substantially perpendicular to the rotor axis. This ionizing section, in a preferred embodiment, employs a plurality of concentric loops defined by a plurality of concentric grounded flow divider elements disposed alternately between the ionizing wires. The wires and divider elements are all of a ringlike configuration, such as being octagonal. This ionizing section permits efficient ionization of the particles contained within the gaseous stream so that the particles can be removed by the rotor.
A still further object of this invention is to provide an improved electrostatic precipitator, as aforesaid, having improved structures associated therewith for permitting the collector plates and the ionizing section to be electrically charged.
Other objects and purposes of the invention will be apparent to persons familiar with systems of this type upon reading the following specification and inspecting the accompanying drawings.